College Football Event Sponsorship

Dayton, OH—Aside from the Olympics, college football fandom is the place to be for activating brands, sponsor dollars, and leveraging overall fan engagement, corporate hospitality, and experiences. Regardless of one’s favorite school, channels that provide college football coverage are ultimately declared the winners—as determined by TV ratings.

Brands looking to take advantage of college football’s popularity ultimately need relevant metrics to track the right tools and information—ensuring a ROI—to make strategic decisions and build the right campaigns that will authentically integrate into the game and engage its passionate fan base. Without a comprehensive measurement plan in place, brands will struggle to know if they are maximizing their sponsorship opportunities, and if strategy changes will move metrics in a positive direction.

Brands that can boast some of the most successful metrics* around their college football sponsorship tenures, like Dr Pepper and Nissan, can credit the following:

1. Strong creative: Dr Pepper is one of the most recognized brands in the space, particularly due to its multi-year attention-grabbing creative campaign starring Dr Pepper vendor mascot Larry Culpepper, a spokesperson who has since become synonymous with college football culture.

2. Activating consistently throughout the college football season: Dr Pepper consistently ran its Culpepper ads throughout the college football season and the championships. The brand recently announced the retirement of the Culpepper campaign to launch “Fansville,” an episodic mock TV drama that premiered at the beginning of the season and will release new episodes until its “season finale” during the National Championship in an effort to keep fans engaged throughout.

3. A signature asset: Nissan continues to keep its eight-year Heisman House sponsorship fresh with an ad campaign that utilizes the familiar faces of fan favorite Heisman winners.

*Source: rEvolution college football research